THE TREE OF LIFE

Born in 1982 in the town of Vilcha, Ukrainian artist Olesia Trofymenko studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv, where she now lives and works. Maria Grazia Chiuri invited her to create the set design of the Dior autumn-winter 2022-2023 haute couture show after having seen one of the artist’s pieces where painting and embroidery are combined to represent the tree of life, a symbol that runs through the entire collection and gives it its meaning.

Olesia Trofymenko’s oeuvre interweaves elements and memories of her country’s traditions in an intimate, highly personal representation that she manages to transpose to the scale of the set design. For the staging of the défilé, she has created an iconographic project – entitled The Flow* – in which the tree of life stands next to bouquets of flowers embroidered by the Chanakya ateliers and the Chanakya School of Craft.

These traditional symmetrical structures symbolise femininity, the idea of continuity and a bright future. Rhythmically marking the space, a dialogue takes place between this work and a series of Ukrainian landscapes revealed through revisited archive photos. These images refer to the deepest values of our human condition and the place we hold in the flow of the world. 

THE MAKING-OF

*A project curated by Solomia Savchuk.

© Adrien Dirand  © Sophie Carre  © Olesia Trofimenko  © Chanakya School of Craft